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As Health Secretary Wes Streeting initiates a national conversation about the future of the NHS, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has stressed the importance of increasing investment in medicines to fix the 'broken' NHS. Streeting is inviting the public, NHS staff, and experts to share their experiences and contribute to shaping the government's 10 Year Health Plan to build an NHS fit for the future. The government aims to implement three big shifts to transform the NHS: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. Richard Torbett, chief executive of the ABPI, has highlighted the vital role medicines and vaccines can play in achieving these priorities. He said: "Wes Streeting is spot-on in identifying three strategic shifts necessary to fix the broken NHS. Medicines and vaccines have a vital role in all three of these priorities, but we are not currently realising their potential."

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting reiterated his commitment to reducing NHS waiting lists during his visit to Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust's Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot on Friday. Streeting toured the Berkshire hospital, which is helping tackle backlogs of planned operations with dedicated surgical services, thereby cutting local waiting lists. The health secretary spoke to staff and patients at the hospital before meeting regional health representatives to discuss the issues facing services at a town hall event. His visit follows his recent call for an independent investigation into the NHS, pledging to be honest about the state of the health service and serious about fixing it. "The NHS is broken. Millions of patients are waiting too long for treatment, often in pain and discomfort," Streeting said.

The government has decided to refresh the NHS workforce plan, prioritising on shifting care from hospitals and into the community. The revised plan, expected to be unveiled in the summer 2025, aims to ensure the workforce is used effectively to support the delivery of the upcoming 10-Year Health Plan. Health secretary Wes Streeting explained the need to revise the plan citing Lord Darzi's report, which highlighted the dire state of the NHS, including that "too many people end up in hospital because there aren't the resources in the community to reach patients earlier." "Our 10 Year Health Plan will deliver 3 big shifts in the focus of healthcare: from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. "We will refresh the NHS workforce plan to fit the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, so the NHS has the staff it needs to treat patients on time again," Streeting said.

In his first speech as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP acknowledged that the NHS is in crisis while outlining his mission to save the health service. Streeting described the current state of the NHS as "broken," noting its failure to meet the needs of both patients and dedicated healthcare professionals. "When we said during the election campaign, that the NHS was going through the biggest crisis in its history, we meant it. "When we said that patients are being failed on a daily basis, it wasn't political rhetoric, but the daily reality faced by millions," he said on Friday (5 July). The new health secretary remarked that previous governments had been unwilling to admit these simple facts.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, visited St Margaret's Hospital in Epping, West Essex, on Thursday (1 August) as part of an ongoing series of planned engagements with NHS trusts across England. Accompanied by NHS Chief Executive, Amanda Pritchard, Streeting observed how NHS staff are using innovative technology to monitor patients at home and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. He met with staff from the hospital's Care Coordination Centre and the 'hospital at home' hub, which work to reduce unnecessary A&E admissions and facilitate quick and safe discharges home. Before the hospital tour, the health secretary met the trust's falls response team, which uses a specially equipped 'falls car' to assist patients who have fallen at home, preventing A&E visits. Later, Streeting visited the Ross Practice GP surgery in Harlow before holding a town hall event with health leaders in the region.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting has on Wednesday laid out his vision for reforming the National Health Service, stating that the NHS is "broken but not beaten" after years of Conservative governance. In his address to the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Streeting highlighted the current challenges facing the NHS, including record-high waiting lists, ambulance delays, and difficulties in accessing GP appointments. Stressing that "reform or die" is the choice facing the NHS, he rejected the idea of simply increasing funding without systemic changes. Streeting noted some initial successes since Labour took office, including employing 1,000 more GPs and negotiating an end to junior doctors' strikes. He revealed that crack teams of top clinicians will be deployed to hospitals across the country to roll out reforms: to treat more patients and cut waiting lists.

At the Future of Britain Conference 2024, the newly appointed Secretary of Health and Social Care, (DHSC) Wes Streeting, stated that "Labour's DNA is in the NHS". He also called for a long-term approach to reform the broken health sector and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to steer the healthcare system towards sustainability and growth. Hosted by Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and My Life My Say today, Tuesday, 9, Streeting discussed the plans to fix the healthcare system and role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in "making the right choices" by bringing in three essential shifts in the healthcare. Criticising the previous Conservative administration for leaving "massive burning deck issues" due to constant reshuffling within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Streeting lamented that this "instability" and "indecisions" have made comprehensive reform even more pressing. Drawing inspiration from Chancellor Rachel Reeves' speech on economic growth, Streeting stressed the interconnectedness of health and economic prosperity.

Wes Streeting's speech at the Labour Party Conference 2024 outlines several key health and social care reforms, which hold significant implications for community pharmacy in England. His focus on reforming and rebuilding the NHS to ensure fair, universal access to care, with prevention and early intervention at its core, presents both opportunities and challenges for community pharmacy. Here are the potential implications: 1. Prevention Focus Streeting's vision of a shift from a reactive, hospital-based model to a preventive healthcare system presents a promising future for community pharmacies. These changes could significantly reduce pressures on GPs and hospitals, integrating pharmacies more closely into primary care networks and enhancing their role in preventive care. 2. Digital Transformation The move from an "analogue to digital" NHS could see community pharmacies adopting more digital tools and systems for service delivery. This would likely involve greater use of digital prescribing, telehealth consultations, and AI-driven services. Pharmacies will need to invest in digital infrastructure and ensure that pharmacy professionals are trained to operate within a more tech-centric environment. 3. Reform and Redistribution of Services Streeting's plans to extend choice and equitable access to services mean that community pharmacies could become integral to providing care in underserved or disadvantaged areas. With a focus on decentralising healthcare and bringing it closer to local communities, community pharmacies could play a more significant role in supporting healthcare delivery in areas where GP services are stretched. This may include expanding access to pharmacy services in the most deprived areas, aligning with Labour's emphasis on addressing health inequalities.

I have always been passionate about Community Pharmacy and am proud of the way that the sector navigated itself through Covid-19 and is currently navigating itself through all the changes in the NHS landscape. When I started my role in Sep 2019 as the CEO of Kent LPC, I used to say that community pharmacy has changed more in the last five years than the 15 before that, however, I now believe community pharmacy has changed more in the last two years than the 20 before. The year 2019 saw the start of the five-year Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework which set out how community pharmacy would support delivery of the NHS long term plan. What PSNC (or any of us) when negotiating this deal had not envisaged was the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst the world turned upside down, we saw high street shops close their doors and immense pressure flood the NHS. Community pharmacy did what they always do, they adapted, teams came together, worked through, and showed resilience in the face of adversity. In Kent, I saw us integrate into primary are and into the NHS structure very quickly, in the first few weeks after Covid-19. All the usual red tape was removed, we all worked together to implement services to help patients in a matter of weeks when they would have normally taken months.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) in England and 19 other organisations have written to health secretary Wes Streeting, calling for a cohesive cross-government strategy to tackle medicine shortages across the UK. The letter stresses the need for actions to build supply chain resilience, support UK manufacturing, improve data connectivity, protect access to life-critical medicines, and reduce duplication across the NHS. As the government works on its 10-Year NHS Plan, the signatories emphasise the importance of ensuring patients' continued access to vital medicines, which are "an investment in their health." They underscore that the strategy would require engagement by the government across the NHS and the whole of the medicines supply chain, including manufacturers, suppliers, health professions, and patients. The letter also highlights that delays in accessing medicines could be reduced by changing legislation to empower community pharmacists to make minor amendments to prescriptions when shortages occur.

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting outlined his plans for NHS reform on Friday (21 April), where he also mentioned a desire to see pharmacies take on more workload and pharmacists' clinical skills to be better utilised. In his speech, he also expressed concern at warnings from the pharmacy sector and pharmacy closures. The Company Chemists' Association (CCA) appreciated Shadow Health Secretary's desire to enhance pharmacies' role in primary care reform but also stated that the sector is in urgently needs a funding injection. Dr. Nick Thayer, Head of Policy at the Company Chemists' Association (CCA) comment: "We are pleased to see the Shadow Health Secretary recognise the enhanced role that pharmacies should play in primary care reform. Mr Streeting wants to see care brought closer to people's homes and more front doors into the NHS. With 89.2% of the population located within a 20-minute walk of a pharmacy, pharmacies do just that. They are essential to realising his vision of a 'neighbourhood health service'. Pharmacies could free up over 42m GP appointments annually, including 10m vaccination appointments. Urgent same-day appointments for minor conditions in pharmacies will immediately benefit patients by increasing GP access. The first step is for the Government to immediately commission a fully-funded Pharmacy First service in England.

The 14th Community Pharmacy Conference by Sigma Pharmaceuticals has been timely, prime minister Rishi Sunak said, noting that it coincided with the launch of Pharmacy First, a new initiative that enables patients to receive treatments for seven common conditions directly from a pharmacist without the need for a GP appointment or prescription. "We are all grateful for the tremendous contributions that pharmacists make to our NHS. The fantastic work you do is critical to the success of Pharmacy First and many other initiatives," Sunak said in a written message. The conference was organised from 25-29 February at Sun City in Johannesburg, South Africa, under the theme 'community pharmacy in an integrated NHS'. In a recorded video address to the Sigma Conference, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said community pharmacies are 'critical' to the Labour party's mission to make the NHS 'fit for the future'. "You should be playing a much more significant role. Labour's reform agenda will get pharmacists working to the top of their licence. We want community pharmacists to play a greater role in healthcare, with more focus on their expertise in prescribing and medicines management," he said.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) recently published Lord Darzi's report on the state of NHS England, revealing that the health service is in "serious trouble." "The service has been chronically weakened by a lack of capital investment, which has lagged behind other similar countries by tens of billions of pounds," he stated. Shortly after taking office, Health Secretary Wes Streeting commissioned an independent investigation to assess the challenges facing the healthcare system in preparation for a new 10-year health plan. Former surgeon Lord Ara Darzi was appointed to lead this review. In his report, Lord Darzi pointed out that the NHS has failed to meet key promises made to the public since 2015, and patient satisfaction is now at its "lowest ever level." Rising waiting times and difficulties accessing GPs were highlighted as major concerns. "There are huge and unwarranted variations in the number of patients per GP, and shortages are particularly acute in deprived communities," he said. Lord Darzi described the state of A&E as "awful," noting that nearly 10% of patients wait 12 hours or more today.

The Labour government published its elective care reform plan today (6 January), outlining the necessary steps to reduce patient waiting times, including expanding non-surgical ENT [ear, nose and throat] services in community pharmacies. As set out in its 'Plan for Change', the government aims to restore the constitutional standard of 92 per cent of patients receiving treatment within 18 weeks by March 2029. Additionally, it plans to address the ongoing challenges in meeting cancer waiting time standards. Health secretary Wes Streeting emphasised the urgency of reform, highlighting that over 6 million people are currently on a waiting list, waiting for more than 7 million episodes of care, like a test or an operation. Streeting said: "For those millions of people, the fundamental promise of our NHS - that it will be there for us when we need it - has not been delivered. This can't go on." "The actions in this plan will reform elective care, giving patients timely local access to diagnostic testing, with straight to test pathways and action to reform outpatient care,

A group of 20 parliamentarians has written to health secretary Wes Streeting MP, calling for urgent government action to address the growing financial crisis facing community pharmacies. In the cross-party letter, supported by Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the MPs warned of a real risk of more pharmacy closures, with one in six pharmacy owners saying that they are unsure if their pharmacy will survive the year. They have urged the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE) to prioritise long-term planning for pharmacies, including the implementation of the Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service. The MPs have also highlighted the need for more effective marketing for Pharmacy First to increase both walk-ins and referrals to this critical service. CPE chief executive Janet Morrison welcomed the support of 20 cross-party parliamentarians and recognising the vital role pharmacies play in the local community. She stressed the urgent need for immediate government intervention to ensure the survival of the sector and to maximise its potential in providing accessible care.

In the parliamentary drop-in-event hosted by Community Pharmacy England last week, Members of Parliament (MPs) questioned the Health Secretary on the rising issue of medicines supply. "Eighteen community pharmacists in my constituency are reporting challenges on medicine supplies. What more is the Minister going to do to get a grip of this situation?", Mike Amesbury MP for Weaver Vale, who was present at the event last week, asked the Health Secretary. In his response, the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay MP said: "We have a long-standing team in the Department focused on medical supplies, which are a continual issue; as a matter of routine business, there are often challenges in that area." The Shadow Pharmacy Minister, Karin Smyth MP, also asked: "People across the country rely on local, accessible pharmacies, but whether it is high street closures or supply problems leading to the absurd situation where women are phoning or visiting multiple pharmacies for a prescribed dose of hormone replacement therapy and other drugs…They have repeatedly announced plans to expand the role of community pharmacies but have failed to update legislation that could possibly help. … Why will they not do so?